Homer, where individual heroes fought with one another, armed with the
sword, the lance, and the javelin, protected by shields, helmets, and
coats of mail. They fought on foot, or from chariots, which were in use
before cavalry. The war-horse was driven before he was ridden in Egypt
or Palestine; but the Aryan barbarians in their invasion rode their
horses, and fought on horseback, like the modern Cossacks.
Until the Greeks became familiar with war as an art, armies were usually
very large, as if a great part of the population of a country followed
the sovereign who commanded them. Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of
the Greeks, according to Herodotus led nearly a million of men in his
expeditions. He was the most noted of ancient warriors until Cyrus the
Persian arose, and was nearly contemporaneous with Moses. The Trojan war
is supposed to have taken place during the period when the Israelites
were subject to the Ammonites; and about the time that the Philistines
were defeated by David, the Greeks were forced by war to found colonies
in Asia Minor.
After authentic history begins, war is the main subject with which it
has to deal; and for three thousand years history is simply the record
of the feats of warriors and generals, of their conquests and defeats,
of the rise and fall of kingdoms and cities, of the growth or decline of
military virtues. No arts of civilization have preserved nations from
the sword of the conqueror, and war has been both the amusement and the
business of kings. From the earliest ages, the most valued laurels have
been bestowed for success in war, and military fame has eclipsed all
other glories. The cry of the mourner has been unheeded in the blaze of
conquest; even the aspirations of the poet and the labors of the artist
have been as nought, except to celebrate the achievements of heroes.
It is interesting then to inquire how far the ancients advanced in the
arts of war, which include military weapons, movements, the structure of
camps, the discipline of armies, the construction of ships and of
military engines, and the concentration and management of forces under a
single man. What was that mighty machinery by which nations were
subdued, or rose to greatness on the ruin of States and Empires? The
conquests of Rameses, of David, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, of
Alexander, of Hannibal, of Caesar, and other heroes are still the
subjects of contemplation among statesmen and schoolboys. The exploits
of heroes are the pith of history.
The art of war must have made great progress in the infancy of
civilization, when bodily energies were most highly valued, when men
were fierce, hardy, strong, and uncorrupted by luxury; when mere
physical forces gave law alike to the rich and the poor, to the learned
and the ignorant; and when the avenue to power led across the field
of battle.
We must go to Egypt for the earliest development of art and science in
all departments; and so far as the art of war consists in the
organization of physical forces for conquest or defence, under the
direction of a single man, it was in Egypt that this was first
accomplished, about seventeen hundred years before Christ, as
chronologists think, by Rameses the Great.
This monarch, according to Wilkinson, the greatest and most ambitious of
the Egyptian kings, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Sesostris,
showed great ability in collecting together large bodies of his
subjects, and controlling them by a rigid military discipline. He
accustomed them to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, fatigue, and
exposure to danger. With bodies thus rendered vigorous by labor and
discipline, they were fitted for distant expeditions. Rameses first
subdued the Arabians and Libyans, and annexed them to the Egyptian
monarchy. While he inured his subjects to fatigue and danger, he was
careful to win their affections by acts of munificence and clemency. He
then made his preparations for the conquest of the known world, and
collected an army, according to Diodorus Siculus, of six hundred
thousand infantry, twenty-four thousand cavalry, and twenty-seven
thousand war-chariots. It is difficult to understand how a small country
like Egypt could furnish such an immense force. If the account of the
historian be not exaggerated, Rameses must have enrolled the conquered
Libyans and Arabians and other nations among his soldiers. He subjected
his army to a stern discipline and an uncomplaining obedience to
orders,--the first principle in the science of war, which no successful
general in the world's history has ever disregarded, from Alexander to
Napoleon. With this powerful army his march was irresistible. Ethiopia
was first subdued, and an exaction made from the conquered of a tribute
of gold, ivory, and ebony. In those ancient times a conquering army did
not resettle or colonize the territories it had subdued, but was
contented with overrunning the country and exacting tribute from the
people. Such was the nature of the Babylonian and Persian conquests.
After overrunning Ethiopia and some other countries near the Straits of
Babelmandeb, the conqueror proceeded to India, which he overran beyond
the Ganges, and ascended the high table-land of Central Asia; then
proceeding westward, he entered Europe, nor halted in his devastating
career until he reached Thrace. From thence he marched to Asia Minor,
conquering as he went, and invaded Assyria, seating himself on the
throne of Ninus and Semiramis. Then, laden with booty from the Eastern
world, he returned to Egypt after an absence of thirty years and
consolidated his empire, building those vast structures at Thebes, which
for magnitude have never been surpassed. Thus was Egypt enriched with
the spoil of nations, and made formidable for a thousand years. Rameses
was the last of the Pharaohs who pursued the phantom of military renown,
or sought glory in distant expeditions.
We are in ignorance as to the details of the conquests and the generals
who served under Rameses. There is doubtless some exaggeration in the
statements of the Greek historian, but there is no doubt that this
monarch was among the first of the great conquerors to establish a
regular army, and to provide a fleet to co-operate with his land forces.
The strength of the Egyptian army consisted mainly in archers. They
fought either on foot or in chariots; cavalry was not much relied upon,
although mention is frequently made of horsemen as well as of chariots.
The Egyptian infantry was divided into regiments, and Wilkinson tells us
that they were named according to the arms they bore,--as "bowmen,
spearmen, swordsmen, clubmen, slingers." These regiments were divided
into battalions and companies, commanded by their captains. The
infantry, heavily armed with spears and shields, formed a phalanx almost
impenetrable of twelve men deep, who marched with great regularity. Each
company had its standard-bearer, who was an officer of approved valor;
the royal standards were carried by the royal princes or by persons of
the royal household. The troops were summoned by the sound of trumpet,
and also by the drum, both used from the earliest period. The offensive
weapons were the bow, the spear, the javelin, the sword, the club, or
mace, and the battle-axe. The chief defensive weapon was the shield,
about three feet in length, covered with bull's hide, having the hair
outward and studded with nails. The shape of the bow was not essentially
different from that used in Europe in the Middle Ages, being about five
feet and a half long, round, and tapering at the ends; the bowstring was
of hide or catgut. The arrows of the archers averaged about thirty
inches in length, and were made of wood or reeds, tipped with a metal
point, or flint, and winged with feathers. Each bowman was furnished
with a plentiful supply of arrows. When arrows were exhausted, the
bowman fought with swords and battle-axes; his defensive armor was
confined chiefly to the helmet and a sort of quilted coat. The spear was
of wood, with a metal head, was about five or six feet in length, and
used for thrusting. The javelin was lighter, for throwing. The sling was
a thong of plaited leather, broad in the middle, with a loop at the end.
The sword was straight and short, between two and three feet in length,
with a double edge, tapering to a sharp point, and used for either cut
or thrust; the handle was frequently inlaid with precious stones. The
metal used in the manufacture of swords and spear-heads was bronze,
hardened by a process unknown to us. The battle-axe had a handle about
two-and a-half feet in length, and was less ornamented than other
weapons. The cuirass, or coat of armor, was made of horizontal rows of
metal plate, about an inch in breadth, well secured together by bronze
pieces. The Egyptian chariot held two persons,--the charioteer, and the
warrior armed with his bow-and-arrow and wearing a cuirass, or coat of
mail. The warrior carried also other weapons for close encounter, when
he should descend from his chariot to fight on foot. The chariot was of
wood, the body of which was light, strengthened with metal; the pole was
inserted in the axle; the two wheels usually had six spokes, but
sometimes only four; the wheel revolved on the axle, and was secured by
a lynch-pin. The leathern harness and housings were simple, and the
bridles, or reins, were nearly the same as are now in use.
"The Egyptian chariot corps, like the infantry," says Wilkinson, "were
divided into light and heavy troops, both armed with bows,--the former
chiefly employed in harassing the enemy with missiles; the latter called
upon to break through opposing masses of infantry." The infantry, when
employed in the assault of fortified towns, were provided with shields,
under cover of which they made their approaches to the place to be
attacked. In their attack they advanced under cover of the arrows of the
bowmen, and instantly applied the scaling-ladder to the ramparts. The
testudo, a wooden shelter, was also used, large enough to contain
several men. The battering-ram and movable towers resembled those of the
Romans a thousand years later.
It would thus appear that the ancient Egyptians, in the discipline of
armies, in military weapons offensive and defensive, in chariots and
horses, and in military engines for the reduction of fortified towns,
were scarcely improved upon by the Greeks and Romans, or by the
Europeans in the Middle Ages. Yet the Egyptians were an ingenious rather
than a warlike people, fond of peace, and devoted to agricultural
pursuits.
More warlike than they were the Assyrians and the Persians, although we
fail to discover any essential difference in the organization of armies,
or in military weapons. The great difference between the Persian and the
Egyptian armies was in the use of cavalry. From their earliest
settlements the Persians were skilful horsemen, and these formed the
guard of their kings. Under Cyrus, the Persians became the masters of
the world, but they rapidly degenerated, not being able to withstand the
luxurious life of the conquered Babylonians; and when they were
marshalled against the Greeks, and especially against the disciplined
forces of Alexander, they were disgracefully routed in spite of their
enormous armies, which could not be handled, and became mere mobs of
armed men.
The art of war made a great advance under the Greeks, although we do
not notice any striking superiority of arms over the Eastern armies led
by Sesostris or Cyrus. The Greeks were among the most warlike of all the
races of men; they had a genius for war. The Grecian States were engaged
in perpetual strifes with one another, and constant contention developed
military strength; and yet the Greeks, until the time of Philip, had no
standing armies. They relied for offence and defence on the volunteer
militia, which was animated by intense patriotic ideas. All armies in
the nature of things are more or less machines, moved by one commanding
will; but the Greek armies owed much of their success to the individual
bravery of their troops, who were citizens of States under
constitutional forms of government.
The most remarkable improvement in the art of war was made by the
Spartans, who, in addition to their strict military discipline,
introduced the _phalanx_,--files of picked soldiers, eight deep, heavily
armed with spear, sword, and shield, placed in ranks of eight, at
intervals of about six feet apart. This phalanx of eight files and eight
ranks,--sixty-four men,--closely locked when the soldiers received or
advanced to attack, proved nearly impregnable and irresistible. It
combined solidity and the power of resistance with mobility. The picked
men were placed in the front and rear; for in skilful evolutions the
front often became the rear, and the rear became the front. Armed with
spears projecting beyond the front, and with their shields locked
together, the phalanx advanced to meet the enemy with regular step, and
to the cadence of music; if beaten, it retired in perfect order. After
battle, each soldier was obliged to produce his shield as a proof that
he had fought or retired as a soldier should. The Athenian phalanx was
less solid than that of Sparta,--Miltiades having decreased the depth to
four ranks, in order to lengthen his front,--but was more efficient in a
charge against the enemy. The Spartan phalanx was stronger in defence,
the Athenian more agile in attack. The attack was nearly irresistible,
as the soldiers advanced with accelerated motion, corresponding to the
double-quick time of modern warfare. This was first introduced by
Miltiades at Marathon.
Philip of Macedon adopted the Spartan phalanx, but made it sixteen deep,
which gave it greater solidity, and rendered it still more effective. He
introduced the large oval buckler and a larger and heavier spear. When
the phalanx was closed for action, each man occupied but three square
feet of ground: as the pikes were twenty-four feet in length, and
projected eighteen feet beyond the front, the formation presented an
array of points such as had never been seen before. The greatest
improvement effected by Philip, however, was the adoption of standing
armies instead of the militia heretofore in use throughout the Grecian
States. He also attached great importance to his cavalry, which was
composed of the flower of the nobility, about twelve hundred in number,
all covered with defensive armor; these he formed into eight squadrons,
and constituted them his body-guard. The usual formation of the regular
cavalry was in the form of a wedge, so as to penetrate and break the
enemy's line,--a manoeuvre probably learned from Epaminondas of Thebes,
a great master in the art of war, who defeated the Spartan phalanx by
forming his columns upon a front less than their depth, thus enabling
him to direct his whole force against a given point. By these tactics he
gained the great victory at Leuctra, as Napoleon likewise prevailed over
the Austrians in his Italian campaign. In like manner Philip's son
Alexander, following the example of Epaminondas, concentrated his forces
upon the enemy's centre, and easily defeated the Persian hosts by
creating a panic. There was no resisting a phalanx sixteen files deep,
with their projecting pikes, aided by the heavily armed cavalry, all
under the strictest military discipline and animated by patriotic ardor.
This terrible Macedonian phalanx was a great advance over the early
armies of the Greeks, who fought without discipline in a hand to hand
encounter, with swords and spears, after exhausting their arrows. They
had learned two things of great importance,--a rigid discipline, and a
concentration of forces which made an army a machine. Under Alexander,
the grand phalanx consisted of 16,384 men, made up of four divisions and
smaller phalanxes.
In Roman armies we see a still further advance in the military art, as
it existed in the time of Augustus, which required centuries to perfect.
The hardy physique and stern nature of the Romans, exercised and
controlled by their organizing genius, evolved the Roman legion, which
learned to resist the impetuous assaults of the elephants of the East,
the phalanx of the Greeks, and the Teutonic barbarians. The indomitable
courage of the Romans, trained under severest discipline and directed by
means of an organization divided and subdivided and officered almost as
perfectly as our modern corps and divisions and brigades and regiments
and companies and squads, marched over and subdued the world.
The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
burden of eighty pounds; to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
that his destiny was to die in battle: death was at once his duty and
his glory. He enlisted in the army with little hope of revisiting his
home; he crossed seas and deserts and forests with the idea of spending
his life in the service of his country. His pay was only a denarius
daily, equal to about sixteen cents of our money. Marriage for him was
discouraged or forbidden. However insignificant the legionary was as a
man, he gained importance from the great body with which he was
identified: he was both the servant and the master of the State. He had
an intense _esprit de corps_; he was bound up in the glory of his
legion. Both religion and honor bound him to his standards; the golden
eagle which glittered in his front was the object of his fondest
devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the penalty of cowardice or
treachery or disobedience; he could be chastised with blows by his
centurion, and his general could doom him to death. Never was the
severity of military discipline relaxed; military exercises were
incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace the Roman
troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
to which they were inured that gave them their irresistible strength.
When we remember that they had not our firearms, we can but be surprised
at their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, the most elaborate
fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, besides the aid
received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great must
have been the military science that could reduce a place of such
strength, in so short a time, without the aid of other artillery than
the ancient catapult and battering-ram! Whether the military science of
the Romans was superior or inferior to our own, no one can question that
it was as perfect as it could be, lacking any knowledge of gunpowder; we
surpass them only in the application of this great invention, especially
in artillery. There can be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a
feudal army in the brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no
generals greater than Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever
won greater victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no
armies of their size ever retained in submission so vast an empire, and
for so long a time. At no period in the history of the Roman empire were
the armies so large as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two
hundred thousand legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled
diverse nations and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria
once boasted of a military force equal in the number of soldiers to that
wielded by the Emperor Tiberius. Twenty-five Roman legions made the
conquest of the world, and retained that conquest for five hundred
years. The self-sustained energy of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush
the efforts of all modern generals, unless we except Frederic II.,
Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman, and a few other great
geniuses whom warlike crises have developed; nor is there a better
text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar himself in his
Commentaries. The great victories of the Romans over barbarians, over
Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians, over Persians,
were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like those of Attila
and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years.
The Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus at
home were enervated and self-indulgent, but at the head of their legions
they were capable of any privation and fatigue.
The Roman legion was a most perfect organization, a great mechanical
force, and could sustain furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and
public spirit had fled. For three hundred years a vast empire was
sustained by mechanism alone. The legion is coeval with the foundation
of Rome, but the number of the troops of which it was composed varied at
different periods. It rarely exceeded six thousand men; Gibbon estimates
the number at six thousand eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many
centuries it was composed exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year
B.C. 107, no one was permitted to serve among the regular troops except
those who were regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the
stability of the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and
after the close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of
Italy was allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated
with the legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians
filled up the ranks on account of the degeneracy of the times. But
during the period when the Romans were conquering the world every
citizen was trained to arms, like the Germans of the present day, and
was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the early age of
the republic the legion was disbanded as soon as the special service was
performed, and was in all essential respects a militia. For three
centuries we have no record of a Roman army wintering in the field; but
when Southern Italy became the seat of war, and especially when Rome was
menaced by foreign enemies, and still more when a protracted foreign
service became inevitable, the same soldiers remained in activity for
several years. Gradually the distinction between the soldier and the
civilian was entirely obliterated. The distant wars of the
republic--such as the prolonged operations of Caesar in Gaul, and the
civil contests--made a standing army a necessity. During the civil wars
between Caesar and Pompey the legions were forty in number; under
Augustus, but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them to
thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire,--from one hundred
and fifty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand men, stationed in
the various provinces.